Unmentioned
by Ryeloza
Summary: She and Perry had a lot of things in their past that they didn't mention, and this was one of them. A story about Jordan and Perry. Jordan PoV.
1. Chapter 1

**A/n: **This is my first attempt at _Scrubs_ fanfiction. As they say, practice makes perfect. Feedback certainly helps too. Please review.

**Unmentioned**

She'd had a miscarriage before the divorce.

She and Perry had a lot of things in their past that they didn't mention, and this was one of them. At least, they didn't mention it in words. It was too hard. It made both of them too vulnerable.

But she could see it in his eyes sometimes, when he looked at Jack. In the shuddery breath he would take when his hand rested against her pregnant stomach. And that was how she knew he remembered. Their actions spoke for what they wouldn't say.

That time, that first pregnancy with Perry, she hadn't told him that she was pregnant. She'd still been working up the courage when she'd lost the baby. It had seemed as though she had forever to tell him. To explain that the antibiotic she was on must have counteracted her birth control. That their condom must have broken. That they were going to bring a baby into a world of fighting and dysfunction and hostility that was laced with a filmy layer barely recognizable as love.

They had never wanted kids. But as she had sat there in bed, pain radiating throughout her body, she couldn't help pleading with God to stop it from happening. To prevent the tragedy even as it was occurring.

There seemed to be so much blood. That she could still remember clearly.

It wouldn't stop. It just kept coming and the pain kept throbbing and her mind whirled in a foggy mantra of _please, God_. And as much as she had wanted to quietly call 911 and leave Perry out of it entirely, the nearest phone was in the next room with him.

She called for him tentatively, unwilling to concede weakness even in the face of an emergency. To her amazement, he came in without argument, still holding the television remote in one hand, a beer in the other. "What?" he said, obviously annoyed. But then he caught a glimpse of her pale face and the blood soaked sheets and the color drained from his face. He dropped both the remote and the beer without a second thought. He understood. Without words, without thought, he understood.

"Jordan, baby?" he said, rushing over to her. His hands gripped her shoulders, steadying her as she sat against the edge of the bed.

"I think I need to go to the hospital," she said, breathing heavily. And he simply nodded and ran into the other room. She could hear him on the phone, demanding an ambulance. She'd never heard panic like that in his voice before.

It was fifteen minutes before the ambulance arrived. She had curled into a ball on the end of the bed, trying to squeeze away the pain in her abdomen. Perry was sitting beside her, stroking her hair and back and quietly cursing the ambulance for not coming faster.

She was loaded onto a gurney and wheeled out of their house while Perry fought about where they'd take her. He wanted her at Sacred Heart. The paramedics seemed to want to go to County. She wasn't aware at the time of who won the fight. She was too busy trying to will the pain away with mere thought. _Please, God_... At some point on the drive to the hospital, she realized Perry wasn't in the ambulance with her and she felt inexplicably frightened.

They arrived and within seconds, Perry's face appeared above her, concern and pain etched on his features. He'd followed the ambulance, she realized dimly.

She was wheeled in and then suddenly someone was stopping Perry, pulling him away from the gurney, away from her. And for the first time, Jordan felt real fear grip her. She needed Perry there. She didn't want to admit it. She didn't want it to be true. But it was a fact she couldn't quite deny. She needed him to be with her.

She didn't get what she wanted. She was wheeled into surgery, and for several hours she was unaware of anything.

When she woke up, she was in a hospital bed, groggy and disoriented. Without warning or consciousness, she began to cry, and it was only then that she became aware of Perry sitting in the chair next to the bed. In one of those moments neither of them would mention again, he had climbed into the bed next to her and held her against him, rocking her quietly. And she didn't push him away.

She stayed in the hospital for two nights. On the morning they were going to discharge her, Perry had come into the room softly, sitting in the chair next to the bed and running a hand through his hair. "Why didn't you tell me?" he asked.

"I was going to," said Jordan. "But I didn't know..." she trailed off, feeling inadequate and small.

For several seconds, Perry simply stared at her. She knew he was debating how far to push the matter, and she tried to steel herself for a battle. But then, without warning, Perry nodded and stood up. "Let's go home," he said. They weren't going to discuss it. They never did.

And despite the fact they never mentioned it, both times she was pregnant after that she knew that both she and Perry were holding their breath.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/n: **Thank you all so much for the encouraging feedback. I really didn't plan to continue with this story, but this plot bunny burrowed into my brain and wouldn't shut up. I've been thinking for awhile about the incredible difference between the episodes right after Jack was born and now the ones with Jennifer and this was the result. Somehow it fit well with the first chapter. There will most likely be a third installment sometime in the future.

* * *

Even before the miscarriage, she and Perry had never planned on having children, so she pushed away any misgivings she had about her ability to carry a pregnancy to term and let the fear dissolve alongside her marriage. Once it was over with Perry, she really didn't expect to ever think about it again. 

The problem with that logic, of course, was that she never quite managed to cut Perry out of her life.

She had found out she was pregnant with Jack about two weeks after she ran out on Perry at Kelso's award dinner. She'd taken the test in Danni's latest boyfriend's bathroom, watched it turn out positive and then proceeded to lie in bed for three days. She didn't know what to do about it. The first time she had been pregnant she'd been nineteen and scared out of her mind, so she'd gotten rid of it. The second time she had been pregnant, she'd lost the baby before she even worked up the courage to tell her husband. So now what?

Abortion just didn't seem to be the answer, even though she was once again alone and scared and completely unsure that she had any skill as a mother. She'd basically blown the only chance she'd had to get back with the only man she'd ever loved. But somehow the thought that this could be a new direction in her life seemed appealing. Maybe she needed something more than sex and alcohol and board meetings at a hospital she loathed.

And maybe the idea of seeing the product of something she and Perry did turn out okay was incredibly appealing.

But deciding to keep the baby meant risking another miscarriage, and that did terrify her. That woke her up at night. That forced her to go to the doctor much more regularly. That caused her to say prayers that she hadn't uttered since she can't remember when.

So she got through it. Jack was fine. She'd brought him into the world and nothing had gone wrong.

Jennifer was another story.

Yeah, her third pregnancy had been fine. Something had finally gone right. But her fourth pregnancy...

The complete unexpected nature of the entire thing threw her off. Sure, she hadn't expected the other three, but at least they had seemed possible. After the vasectomy, she thought that was it. She thought that the fear was gone for good. She could focus on protecting Jack until the day she died and not worry about anything else. So there was that aspect of it.

And then there was the surgery. The damn surgery. And the bed rest. Ah, yes, that had been the worst. Alone all day, stuck in bed, trying to distract herself from the blinding, terrifying thoughts that ran through her head. And nothing worked. Not the TV, the crossword puzzles, the books, the music, sewing buttons (the only sewing skill her mother had managed to teach her) back onto damaged shirts. Nothing worked.

When the baby was born Perry said she was fine. But Jordan just couldn't let go of that fear. It gripped her completely.

Here she was, nearly forty years old, and she was frightened of a newborn baby.

And because she was who she was, she didn't know how to tell anyone. She didn't know how to tell the one person who mattered.

So she started acting out more than usual and fucking around in ways she didn't know she was capable of in reality and wondering just when she'd be able to cut the fear out of her heart and become a mother again.

Because this, whatever it was, just wasn't working.


End file.
